He didn’t know how Jenn made herself flush on command, but she went the color of red-wine vinegar. She snatched a cell phone from her purse and walked away from the counter and launched into a fresh tirade to an imaginary girlfriend.
“Wow,” Gibson mouthed despairingly at the counter agent, who exhaled in relief at the momentary reprieve.
“Who is Rupert Delgado?” the counter agent asked.
“Real estate. Worth a couple billion. Not the world’s nicest guy, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know the type. When does Delgado’s jet leave?”
Gibson checked the time. “Twenty minutes.”
“Want me to call over to your desk? Tell them to hold his flight while we take care of this?”
Gibson took his time pretending to weigh the pros and cons in his mind. They’d reached the moment of truth, wherein the mark was convinced to break the rules to help a total stranger. But for it to work, Gibson couldn’t ask for the favor. It needed to be offered. So far, though, despite being sympathetic, the counter agent had played it by the book. Which meant it was time for the calculated gamble that lay at the center of their deception. Gibson had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.
“Yeah, may as well,” Gibson said. “Delgado’s going to peel my face off.”
The counter agent picked up the phone.
Jenn hung up her imaginary call with a snarl and pivoted on Gibson. “Nyet. Nyet. You do not call. Rupert will not be happy. Not with me, with you. You understand me? We go now to the plane, or you will need new employment.”
Jenn kept up her threats in an escalating spiral as Gibson begged her to be reasonable. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the phone hover in the counter agent’s hand. Have a heart. Slowly, slowly, it lowered back into its cradle.
“How soon can you get back here?” the counter agent asked.
Jenn and Gibson went silent in unison.
“Give me an hour?” Gibson said.
“How about two?”
Gibson could have kissed him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“You speak Russian?” Gibson asked when they were safely in the van.
“Don’t you?” She held his gaze stonily for a long moment. The corner of her mouth flickered up in the memory of a smile.
“I thought his head was going to explode.”
“Let’s go before he changes his mind.”
That sounded like a real good idea. Gibson threw the van in reverse and backed out. The Dulles Air Center and Titus Eskridge’s Hangar Six were all the way around on the far side of the airport, past Tyner Aviation. While Gibson drove them back the way he had come, Jenn disappeared into the back and opened one of the suitcases. She peeled off her dress, all the jewelry, and changed into black BDUs.
“Now I see why you’re helping her,” Duke said with a smile.
“Eyes front, Dad.”
“And another angel gets his wings.”
Jenn climbed back into the front seat to pull on her boots. With her Russian party-girl hair and makeup, it made for an interesting dichotomy.
“What?” she asked suspiciously.
“You got a little something on your face.”
“Oh, shut the hell up. You know how long it would take to get all this off? I used so much hair spray it’s like a fiberglass beehive.”
“No . . . you looked—”
“Make peace with God before you finish that sentence.”
The adrenaline relief of coming within a hair’s breadth of disaster made them both a little giddy. For a few minutes, they bantered back and forth like a couple of kids who had snuck out of the house past curfew. Quickly, though, the gravity of the situation reimposed itself, and they fell silent as the van passed between the main terminals. The operation had already had three close calls—the cop when Swonger hot-wired the van, the security guard at the checkpoint, and then the counter agent. Not being cats, they were fast running out of lives.
The Cold Harbor flight wouldn’t depart for ninety minutes, which allowed Gibson to make a wide detour around the Tyner Aviation offices. The last thing they needed was for someone to glance up and wonder where one of their trucks was going at this hour. It gave Jenn time to review the next phase of the plan. Both knew it front to back, but Gibson let her talk. It focused her and settled him down. And if they were being absolutely honest, this was the point when their meticulous planning became little more than a series of branching contingencies. What the Marines called a fragmentary order—a set of standard operating procedures when plans needed to be drawn up in the field—if this, then that; if that, then this.
The difference was, Marine units spent countless hours drilling those standard operating procedures. Jenn and Gibson had worked through theirs only in theory. They were a unit in name only. And to make matters worse, they were going up against professional mercenaries who had trained together for years. They had the element of surprise going for them and not much else.
Sometimes that was enough.
Calista had a source inside the company who had given them a detailed snapshot of a typical Cold Harbor supply run. But this flight was anything but typical. Eskridge was smuggling a kidnapped US citizen out of the country along with his mysterious cargo. Secrecy surrounding tonight had been draconian. Already deeply paranoid, Eskridge had managed all aspects of the flight personally. No one outside his immediate circle had been included, and Calista hadn’t dared push too hard for fear of raising suspicion.
So Jenn and Gibson had planned for multiple contingencies, aware that Hangar Six would remain an unknown until they had eyes on it. Hence the four large suitcases—Jenn was prepared to fight several different battles depending on what they walked into in Hangar Six. Would Eskridge stick to his script and maintain Cold Harbor’s low profile? Or would he ramp up security and risk drawing unwanted attention from customs agents? They were about to find out.
Jenn slung a lightweight nylon tactical rig over her shoulders as the Dulles Air Center rose into view. A white, V-shaped series of six interconnected hangars, the Air Center had its offices and customer center at the pivot, with three hangars on each side. Hangar Six was the last hangar on the northern wing and large enough to park a 747.
From the outside, the customer center looked much the same as Russert Aviation, except that Gibson saw no one at the front desk. He tried the doors, but they were locked. He rang the overnight buzzer and hopped from foot to foot in the cold. A minute passed. He rang again. Jenn nodded tensely from the dark of the van when he glanced back. Finally, a woman in her forties appeared. She wore the expression of a pretty nineties sitcom wife whose plus-size husband had gotten up to his predictable shenanigans. Through the glass door, she asked what Gibson wanted. The keys in her hand jangled, but she made no move to unlock the door.
“Yeah, hi,” Gibson said. “Did Mindy talk to you? I’m here to borrow a jack stand.”
“I haven’t talked to a Mindy.”
“Mindy didn’t call? No, of course she didn’t. Unbelievable,” he said, making it sound like the most believable thing he’d heard all year. Typical Mindy.
“How long do you need it?”